Remember back when the idea of a fun and fast electric vehicle was somewhat laughable? A little over a decade ago that was the norm but how things have changed. Take three minutes to watch the incredible real-world acceleration capability of one of the quickest-accelerating production four-door sedans on the planet below and you’ll see what we mean.
When Tesla came on the scene back in the late 2000s, electric cars were known for being slow, dull, and heavily range-limited. That’s one reason that even a hardcore critic like Jeremy Clarkson called the first Roadster “Biblically quick.” Today, people argue about how good the Model S is in a number of categories but straight-line speed isn’t one of them.
The YouTube channel AutoTopNL just showed us why that’s the case by taking a Model S Plaid onto the Autobahn and going flat out. The road is famously devoid of speed limits on certain sections and so the film below shows nothing but totally legal driving behavior.
More: Watch The Tesla Model S Plaid Do Epic Donuts With Track Mode
In it we see the driver accelerate numerous times from various starting speeds. Under the right circumstances, the Model S Plaid can do 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in just 1.9 seconds. These aren’t those circumstances but it’s still so fast that we don’t think anyone would complain about an extra tenth or two of a second.
In fact, it’s not really that low-end performance that proves to be the most impressive part of this video. It’s up at highway speeds where the Model S Plaid continues to pull as though it’s been shot out of a railgun. The sedan has a top speed of 166 mph or 267 km/h and it reaches it a number of times in this video.
Each and every time it does so with no more drama than most cars seem to experience just getting up to about 80 mph. It’s effortless, easy, and incredibly fast. Of course, it should be with all-wheel drive and some 1,020 hp (760 kW) on board.